Putin bigger threat than ISIS: Soros

Speaking before a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Turkey's downing of a Russian fighter jet "a stab in the back" carried out by the accomplices of terrorists, saying the incident would have serious consequences for Moscow's relations with Ankara.

Russian President Vladimir Putin represents a greater threat to the European Union (EU) than ISIS, according to George Soros.

Writing for Project Syndicate, Soros said that Putin's goal is to "foster the EU's disintegration, and the best way to do so is to flood Europe with Syrian refugees."

Desribing Putin as a "gifted tactician, but not a strategic thinker," Soros went on to explain that while there was no reason to think that the Russian leader became involved in Syria to intensify Europe's refugee crisis, once he "saw the opportunity to hasten the EU's disintegration, he seized it."

Russia and the EU were in a race against time to see who would collapse first. Attacks from jihadi terrorists, while terrifying, did not compare with the threat "emanating from Russia", Soros said.